I don't agree with Bob that this will be a big thing...or that it's likely to be, does he think it's likely? I'm not sure...I think it would be nice and quite cool, it's implied in the odd films here and there but usually only as an afterthought or with cameos, I would have no problem seeing it well done...

I just...don't expect Hollywood to do it well. Perhaps I'm being cynical but I always envisage their attempts to replicate a successful instance as being sub par and on the cheap. Invariably then it's obvious what they're trying to do and kind of annoying. If film makers did this really well, even subtly, I'd enjoy it, even if we're just talking the little nods all the time. Full blown integration would be great for many ideas, though certainly not all but it would need to be done well and I get the feeling a lot of directors would be ham fisted about it.

I noticed that Bob left out naming videogames as a form of distributed media, which I find to be a bit of an oversight in a discussion about geek culture and its "Big Picture". Do you actually play any videogames, Bob? Are you r-e-a-l-l-y a geek? Videogames...are...w-e-i-r-d, too!

I love the idea and I disagree with any who say it would alienate viewers. As its been mentioned Clerks/Mallrats/ChasingAmy/Dogma/JayAndSilentBobStrikeBack/clerks2 aka the View Askiewneverse is a brilliant example of how 6 very thematically different films can share many unifying threads and only one of them kinda choked on its own self referencing (Jay and Bob) which IMHO is perfectly natural.

Like the Avengers, that was the big one intended to tie them all together. It can be done and it can be done well.

This is the media giving us a chance to prove it doesn't have dumb itself down to entertain us and I hope it succeeds...all though I fear what would happen if Ryan Renolds gets tapped again for a certain character in a JLA movie.

MonkeyPunch:The Space Janitor ad is starting to get on my proverbial tits.I'm on your site already! (and have watched SP) So what more do you want me to do!!? grr

OH MY GOD I KNOW!!!! I tried to show escapist content to some of my friends but not one was able to keep enough interest through the space janitor ad to actually want to watch the real feature. it is an ANTI ad I wish escapist janitors would clean up.

DemBones:I guess it isn't common knowledge enough, but Tarantino has had a shared continuity in every film he's written. There's the obvious example of the Vega brothers, but also more obscure ones like the fact that Eli Roth's character in Basterds (Donowitz) is supposed to be the ancestor to the film producer in True Romance. Also in Out of Sight, Michael Keaton played the same character that he played in Jackie Brown, but that was since they were from same series of books.

Weird how I didn't realize that considering I saw Deathproof the other day and they mentioned "Big Kahuna Burger." Don't forget Kevin Smith and "Moobie."

Yeah, I was surprised Bob didn't mention Kevin Smith, although I guess his continuous Jersey-verse stems from comic book inspiration anyways.

Bob, that was a really, really stupid idea, and it feels like I should be criticizing you for talking about idiotic and dumb a premise would be to tie Indiana Jones to the actual Bible.

... So why is it that I still keeping thinking that such an idea would be absolutely brilliant?

In all honesty, movie continuity opens up a path for possibly better movie plots as movies are tied to one another and a 'universe' is built with some kind of domestic terrorist force that many protagonists from different parts of the American (because apparently foreign action heroes don't sell well in summer blockbusters) world fighting against and maybe come together in some sort of big, 'Avenger-esque' crossover, forcing the writers to actually pay some damn attention to what they're writing. At the same time, though, shameless plugging ahoy. We can only see whether or not the Avengers will cause this, though.

Actually, when you consider spin-offs in television the idea of a shared universe is not that far fetched. There is a Cracked article that talks about it more, like how "The Wire" and "The X-Files" take place in the same universe along with "Homicide Life on the Street" and the "Law and Order Franchise".

There was also that time "Boston Public" and "The Practice" crossed over, even though they were on separate networks at the time. Or how TGIF would have cross overs of "Sabrina the Teenage Witch", "Boy Meets World", and the dozen or so shitty gimmick shows that revolved through their line up over the years.

Dwayne MacDuffie, god rest his soul, is also frequently credited with the "St. Elsewhere" idea of shared continuity, in that all television shows take place in the mind of one autistic child looking at a snow globe.

But, I do hope the Avengers works. It could bring some new things to movies.

Bob, you could have used more examples when talking about superhero movie history. I don't normally have this problem and I feel like you're normally good with examples, but I kind of got lost around the middle.